Family,
Ok well this week has been insane. i will just jump right into it. so tuesday we traveled. and it was so cool because the munzers (our branch president and his wife) came to see us off. it was so cool. they waited on the platform until our train left. thats how much they loved us. They waited until we left which was so cool. yes they had to be there to pick up their son, but that was later and they woke up super early to see us off. it was cool. So we are off. we first go to bremen where we meet the elders there by accident because one of them is being transfered. Then we were off to hamburg where we met more elders because they were waiting for some new elders to arrive there. then we went to...dang i cant remember. but then off to berlin where we met the AP's and got our new phone and our keys. Then off to cottbus where we met the sisters. and then off to forst. we finally got there and it was about a 20 minute walk (normally 10 minutes but with luggage it sucked) to our apartment and then up three flights of stairs and all of our luggage weighed about a ton each. it was horrible. elder popp literally had weights in his to work out with. LOL. finally there we crashed and tried to organize some stuff. we called some people and told them we were there in forst. Then we get a call from a member saying he is at bahnhof waiting for us. we told him we were already home and so he said he is coming to us becuase he wants to meet us. so they finally arrive and they bring with them 4 bags of groceries. It was so cool. they come in and fill our fridge and cabinets with food. it was so cool. They really do love the elders here. We figure out they are normal members. not the branch president...not our ward mission leader...not anything, just normal members. so cool. they make sure we are ok that night and then invite us over for lunch tomorrow. Finally everything is calmed downa nd we crash for the night, not for to long though because then we wake up early to catch a train to cottbus where we meet the sisters again and then we go to gorlitz for district meeting. District meeting was good and all was fun. i got to see elder carter from ym golden group which was cool. that made me excited. Then we came back and jsut chummed and explored forst and our other areas. we went to the one emmebrs house and had amazing spaghetti and got interviewed. our interview will be in the next branch newspaper. It ws cool. Oh dad the guy we met with, he is a crazy model car and truck finatic and its the same scale as HO. i told him my hobby was model trains and he flipped and went crazy about the hamburg model RR and everything and then i told him of your set up in the basement and such and he got so excited. it was so funny. i thought he also did trains but then after dinner he showed me and it was a room full of cars and trucks. one of the walls was entirely filled with them. it was cool. after dinner we went to our ward mission leaders house and had a meeting with him. the entire time between these appointments and such we are being driven around by another member who is in charge of our apartment who came earlier that day and did our luandry for us and made sure the apartment was up to shape and what not. crazy.
thursday was back to work now that the carziness settled down. we went out to spremberg where we chummed and did some work. friday we went to guben and did some work there. saturday we tried to go to guben again but ran out of time and ahd to come back. we worked in forst on saturday. sunday was normal. we both got up in fast and testimony meeting and introduced ourselves and what not. it was cool. as soon as sacrament was over we ahd about 5 mothers come up and ask us if we ahd an eating appointment that day. so we accepted the first one because we were hoping we would get at least one invite becuase we didnt have any food at home and we got 5 LOL. the rest of church was good. we went to our eating appointment with the family who the father is in charge of our apartment. so we met him already. he ahs a collection of bibles and he ahs over 150 bibles!!! his oldest one is from middle 1400's!!! crazy. he buys a lot on ebay he says and has them in multiple languages. he ahs one that is italien and german in the same book! really cool.
so some info on forst. really small and really ghetto, we were walking down one street yesterday and found this abandonded really HUGE building, just recently abandonded though because the windows were still intact. really creepy. the entire city is like that. a lot of run down old buildings. half the city is faling apart. the bahnhof has only like 1 platform and only 1 train that runs hourly to cottbus. just really ghetto. i will take pictures this week and send them. there is a huge water tower in the center of town which is cool to see. we are right on the border but no street actually crosses the border in forst. the border is a river so it would require a bridge and there are no bridges in forst to go over the river. kind of funny. we are not allowed to go to poland anyway so ya.
the ward here is amazing!!! it ahs about 80-90 members. all of them are super active,. the reason they arent a ward is because most of the people on the ward list are active. so instead of there being over 300 people on the list and about 40 being active. they have like 120 on their list and 80-90 are active. crazy perecntage of active memebrs. really funny. our goal is to baptise 35 people so they can become a ward. crazy thing, according to our records there ahs not been a baptism in over 10 years in forst...kind of sad. but witht he size of the city and such it makes sense. The ward loves the elders here and we found the eating calendar for about 5 months ago and im not joking...an eating appointment everyday. we dont ahve one everyday yet but we are working on it LOL.
ok random notes, I am close enough to the temple now so we are going as a district on february first. We are with the cottbus sisters a lot. we have p-day with them because we dont have an internet cafe in forst and there are no computers we can use at the church. Our apartment is alrger than the one in oldenburg and actually really clean. our washer is on its last leg and we are informing the office asap on that so we dont have to go without a washer when it dies, but all is good: with how small the area is we ahve met miltiple members at stores and such in forst. it is so funny tosee their faces because there ahsnt been elders here for a while. so when they see us they freak out and get all excited. so funny. we met two working at stores and then ran into our 2nd councelor in the presidency and his wife at another store. so cool.
so i wont get my package until the 15th, i will email you about that in two weeks from today. also still no football and i ahve called the oldenburg elders multiple times to check as well as get some stuff we left there.
So it has rained everyday since we have been here in forst. and mostly all day to. its a little depressing but we are pushing through it. i am super bummed out. i left my umbrella back in oldenburg. it was the perfect size to fit in my backpack and was sturdy enough to fight the wind. i bought a new one for like 3 euro but tis super whimpy and i dont like it. i want mine back but im ot sure if the elders in oldenburg will send it or just keep it. i really want it back though. also our area geographically makes no sense at all so we are emailing president about it and seeing what he says about what we are supposed to do about it. we shall see.
well thats all for now love you all laods and i will talk to you next week.
elder ustach
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